Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb explained his views on the Confederate battle flag on CBS’ “This Morning” on Thursday, saying the flag has “long been overdue to come down” from South Carolina’s state grounds. Webb, a former senator from Virginia who announced his presidential campaign last week, received some criticism after he wrote in a June Facebook post that “honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War.” Webb has long argued that soldiers who fought on both sides of the conflict should be commemorated. On Thursday, he said his comments were not a defense of flying the flag in public …
Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb explained his views on the Confederate battle flag on CBS’ “This Morning” on Thursday, saying the flag has “long been overdue to come down” from South Carolina’s state grounds.
Webb, a former senator from Virginia who announced his presidential campaign last week, received some criticism after he wrote in a June Facebook post that “honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War.” Webb has long argued that soldiers who fought on both sides of the conflict should be commemorated.
On Thursday, he said his comments were not a defense of flying the flag in public places.
“My concern was that this would go beyond the issues of harmony and unity that we want to keep on the table and into issues that again divide us,” said Webb, a Vietnam veteran whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy. “The South has never been white against black per se. It’s always been a small veneer of manipulating the emotions of white against black for all these other reasons.”
Calling the Civil War’s history “complex,” he reiterated some of the points from his Facebook post, such as that four slave states stayed in the Union during the Civil War.
Webb, who vowed not to have a super PAC, also addressed campaign finance in the interview. He declined to criticize Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, but said he did not think candidates who oppose the Supreme Court’s Citizen United v. FEC decision should have a super PAC.
“If you’re going to have something like that, it should be independent from a political campaign, and we’re not seeing that,” he said. “And if ethically you’re against that, then don’t say you’re going to support a constitutional amendment four years from now, just say you don’t want to participate.”
Webb, a former secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, also said he doesn’t think the U.S. should rush into a deal with Iran that could lead to it eventually acquiring nuclear weapons.
“We don’t want to send the wrong signals to our allies and others in the region that we are acquiescing to the greater power that Iran has,” Webb said.
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Jim Webb Says Confederate Flag ‘Overdue To Come Down’ In South Carolina
